Glossary Term – Person

John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) was a congressman and senator from South Carolina and a vice president of the United States under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Calhoun played an influential role in the Nullification Crisis during Jackson’s presidency. After the passage of the Tariff of Abominations in 1828, Calhoun proposed state nullification of the law in South Carolina, arguing that states could block the enforcement of federal laws not adopted as Constitutional amendments. Though South Carolina eventually followed Calhoun’s...

Glossary Term – Person

Born on the western frontier of the Carolinas, Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) was the seventh president of the United States and the first from west of the Appalachians. Jackson rose from poverty to a career in law and politics, becoming Tennessee’s first congressman, a senator, and judge on the state supreme court. Although he would later gain a reputation as the champion of the common people, in Tennessee he was allied by marriage, business, and political ties to the state’s elite. As a land speculator, cotton planter, and attorney, he...

Teaching Resource

The election of Andrew Jackson in 1828 marked a change in American politics. For the first time a presidential candidate had been elected from west of the Appalachian Mountains, marking an end to the streak held by wealthy eastern elitists. Jackson represented the emergence of a new middle-/working-class America. The war hero from the Battle of New Orleans who did not have a college education, chewed tobacco, and dueled with pistols to defend his wife’s honor reflected the ideals of the western portion of the United States...